Billeder på siden
PDF
ePub

ODES OF ANACREON.

H

ODE I.1

I SAW the smiling bard of pleasure,
The minstrel of the Teian measure;
'Twas in a vision of the night,
He beamed upon my wandering sight:
I heard his voice, and warmly pressed
The dear enthusiast to my breast.
His tresses wore a silvery dye,
But beauty sparkled in his eye;
Sparkled in his eyes of fire,
Through the mist of soft desire.2
His lip exhaled, whene'er he sighed,
The fragrance of the racy tide;
And, as with weak and reeling feet,
He came my cordial kiss to meet,
An infant of the Cyprian band
Guided him on with tender hand.

Quick from his glowing brows he drew
His braid, of many a wanton hue;
I took the braid of wanton twine,
It breathed of him and blushed with
wine.

I hung it o'er my thoughtless brow,
And ah! I feel its magic now !3
I feel that even his garland's touch
Can make the bosom love too much!

ODE II.

GIVE me the harp of epic song,
Which Homer's finger thrilled along;

1 This ode is the first of the series in the Vatican manuscript, which attributes it to no other poet than Anacreon. They who assert that the manuscript imputes it to Basilius have been misled by the words in the margin, which are merely intended as a title to the following ode. Whether it be the production of Anacreon or not, it has all the features of ancient simplicity, and is a beautiful imitation of the poet's happiest manner.

2 The eyes that are humid and fluctuating show a propensity to pleasure and love; they bespeak, too, a mind of integrity and beneficence, a generosity of disposition, and a genius for poetry.

Baptista Porta tells us some strange opinions of the ancient physiognomists on this subject, their reasons for which were curious, and perhaps not altogether fanciful.-Vide Physiognom. Johan, Baptist. Porta.

But tear away the sanguine string,
For war is not the theme I sing,
Proclaim the laws of festal rite,"
I'm monarch of the board to-night;
And all around shall brim as high,
And quaff the tide as deep as I!
And when the cluster's mellowing dews
Their warm, enchanting balm infuse,
Our feet shall catch the elastic bound,
And reel us through the dance's round.
Oh Bacchus ! we shall sing to thee,
In wild but sweet ebriety!

And flash around such sparks of thought,

As Bacchus could alone have taught !
Then give the harp of epic song,
Which Homer's finger thrilled along;
For war is not the theme I sing!
But tear away the sanguine string,

ODE III.5

LISTEN to the Muse's lyre,
Master of the pencil's fire!
Sketched in painting's bold display,
Many a city first portray;
Many a city, revelling free,
Warm with loose festivity.
Picture then a rosy train,
Bacchants straying o'er the plain;
Piping, as they roam along,

3 This idea, as Longepierre remarks, is in an epigram of the seventh book of the Anthologia: Εξοτε μοι πινοντι συνεσταουσα Χαρικλώ

Λαθρη τους ιδιους αμφέβαλε στεφανους,
Πυρ ολοον δαπτει με.

While I unconscious quaffed my wine,
'Twas then thy fingers slyly stole
Upon my brow that wreath of thine,

Which since has maddened all my soul!

4 The ancients prescribed certain laws of drinking at their festivals, for an account of which see the commentators. Anacreon here acts the symposiarch, or master of the festival.

5 La Fosse has thought proper to lengthen this poem by considerable interpolations of his own, which he thinks are indispensably neces sary to the completion of the description.

[blocks in formation]

1 This is the ode which Aulus Gellius tells us was performed by minstrels at an entertainment where he was present.

2 I have given this according to the Vatican manuscript, in which the ode concludes with the following lines, not inserted accurately in any of the editions:

Ποιησον αμπελους μοι
Και βοτρυας κατ' αυτών
Και μαινάδας τρυγώσας,
Ποιει δε ληνον οίνου,
Ληνοβατας πατούντας,
Τους σατυρους γελώντας,
Και χρυσους τους έρωτας,
Και Κυθερην γελωσαν,
Όμου καλῳ Λυαίῳ,
Ερωτα κ' Αφροδίτην.

3 Degen thinks that this ode is a more modern imitation of the preceding. There is a poem by Cælius Calcagninus, in the manner of both, where he gives instructions about the making of a ring: Tornabis annulum mihi

Et fabre, et apte, et commode, etc. etc.

ODE V.3

GRAVE me a cup with brilliant grace, Deep as the rich and holy vase, Which on the shrine of Spring reposes, When shepherds hail that hour of roses. Grave it with themes of chaste design, Formed for a heavenly bowl like mine. Display not there the barbarous rites In which religious zeal delights; Nor any tale of tragic fate, Which history trembles to relate! No-cull thy fancies from above, Themes of heaven and themes of love. Let Bacchus, Jove's ambrosial boy, Distil the grape in drops of joy ; And while he smiles at every tear, Let warm-eyed Venus, dancing near, With spirits of the genial bed, The dewy herbage deftly tread. Let Love be there, without his arms, In timid nakedness of charms; And all the Graces linked with Love, While rosy boys, disporting round, Blushing through the shadowy grove, In circlets trip the velvet ground; But ah! if there Apollo toys, I tremble for my rosy boys !4

ODE VI.5

As late I sought the spangled bowers, To cull a wreath of matin flowers,

4 An allusion to the fable that Apollo had killed his beloved boy Hyacinth while playing with him at quoits. This,' says La Fosse, 'is assuredly the sense of the text, and it cannot admit of any other.'

The Italian translators, to save themselves the trouble of a note, have taken the liberty of making Anacreon explain this fable. Thus Salvini, the most literal of any of them:

Ma con lor non giuochi Apollo;

Che in fiero risco

Col duro disco

A Giacinto fiaccò il collo.

5 The Vatican MS. pronounces this beautiful fiction to be the genuine offspring of Anacreon. It has all the features of the parent;

et facile insciis Noscitetur ab omnibus.

The commentators, however, have attributed it to Julian, a royal poet.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

Εγω δε τας κομας μεν Ειτ' εισιν, ειτ' απήλθον Ουκ οίδα.

Florentes dum forte vagans mea Hyella per hortos And Longepierre has adduced from Catullus

Texit odoratis lilia cana rosis,

Ecce rosas inter latitantem invenit Amorem

Et simul annexis floribus implicuit.
Luctatur primo, et contra nitentibus alis
Indomitus tentat solvere vincla puer,
Mox ubi lacteolas et dignas matre papillas
Vidit et ora ipsos nota movere Deos,
Impositosque comæ ambrosios ut sentit odores
Quosque legit diti messe beatus Arabs;
'I (dixit) mea, quære novum tibi mater Amorem,
Imperio sedes hæc erit apta meo.'

As fair Hyella, through the bloomy grove
A wreath of many mingled flowerets wove,
Within a rose a sleeping love she found,
And in the twisted wreaths the baby bound.
Awhile he struggled, and impatient tried
To break the rosy bonds the virgin tied;
But when he saw her bosom's milky swell,
Her features, where the eye of Jove might dwell;
And caught the ambrosial odours of her hair,
Rich as the breathings of Arabian air;
'Oh! mother Venus' (said the raptured child
By charms, of more than mortal bloom, beguiled),
'Go, seek another boy, thou'st lost thine own,
Hyella's bosom shall be Cupid's throne!'

This epigram of Naugerius is imitated by Lodovico Dolce, in a poem beginning:

Mentre raccoglie hor uno, hor altro fiore
Vicina a un rio di chiare et lucid' onde,
Lidia, etc. etc.

what he thinks a similar instance of this simplicity of manner:

Ipse quis sit, utrum sit, an non sit, id quoque nescit.

Longepierre was a good critic, but perhaps the line which he has selected is a specimen of a carelessness not very elegant; at the same time, I confess that none of the Latin poets have ever appeared to me so capable of imitating the graces of Anacreon as Catullus, if he had not allowed a depraved imagination to hurry him so often into vulgar licentiousness.

Pontanus has a very delicate thought upon the subject of old age:

Quid rides, Matrona? senem quid temnis amantem ?

Quisquis amat nullâ est conditione senex.

Why do you scorn my want of youth,
And with a smile my brow behold?
Lady, dear! believe this truth,

That he who loves cannot be old.

5 The German poet Lessing has imitated this ode. Vol. i. p. 21.'-Degen. Gail de Editionibus.

the occasion of our poet's returning the money Baxter conjectures that this was written upon

to Polycrates, according to the anecdote in Stobæus.

6 There is a fragment of Archilochus in Plutarch, De tranquillitate animi,' which our poet has very closely imitated here: it begins,

2 Alberti has imitated this ode, in a poem be- Ov μoι та TvуEW TOV TOXνXρVσOv μeλeɩ.—Barnes. ginning,

Nisa mi dice e Clori

Tirsi, tu se' pur veglio.

Henry Stephen very justly remarks the elegant negligence of expression in the original here:

In one of the monkish imitators of Anacreon we find the same thought:

Ψυχην εμην ερωτω,
Τι σοι θέλεις γενεσθαι ;
Θελεις Γύγεω, τα και τα ;

I envy not the monarch's throne,
Nor wish the treasured gold my own.
But oh! be mine the rosy braid,
The fervour of iny brows to shade;
Be mine the odours, richly sighing,
Amidst my hoary tresses flying.1
To-day I'll haste to quaff my wine,
As if to morrow ne'er should shine;
But if to-morrow comes, why then-
I'll haste to quaff my wine again.
And thus while all our days are bright,
Nor time has dimmed their bloomy
light,

Let us the festal hours beguile
With mantling cup and cordial smile;
And shed from every bowl of wine
The richest drop on Bacchus' shrine!
For death may come with brow un-
pleasant,

May come when least we wish him
present,

And beckon to the sable shore,
And grimly bid us-drink no more!

ODE IX.2

I PRAY thee, by the gods above,
Give me the mighty bowl I love,
And let me sing, in wild delight,
'I will-I will be mad to-night!'

Alcmæon once, as legends tell,
Was frenzied by the fiends of hell:
Orestes too, with naked tread,
Frantic paced the mountain-head:
And why?-a murdered mother's shade
Before their conscious fancy played;
But I can ne'er a murderer be,
The grape alone shall bleed by me;
Yet can I rave, in wild delight,
'I will-I will be mad to-night.
The son of Jove, in days of yore,
Imbrued his hands in youthful gore,
And brandished with a maniac joy,
The quiver of the expiring boy:
And Ajax, with tremendous shield,
Infuriate scoured the guiltless field.
But I, whose hands no quiver hold,
No weapon but this flask of gold,
The trophy of whose frantic hours
Is but a scattered wreath of flowers;
Yet, yet can sing with wild delight,
'I will-I will be mad to-night!'

ODE X.3

TELL me how to punish thee,
For the mischief done to me!
Silly swallow! prating thing,*
Shall I clip that wheeling wing?

Triplicato furore,
Bacco, Apollo, et Amore.

Ritratti del Cavalier Marino.

Insanire dulce,

Et sapidum furere furorem.

1 On account of this idea of perfuming the beard, Cornelius de Pauw pronounces the whole ode to be the spurious production of some lascivious monk, who was nursing his beard with This is, as Scaliger expresses it, unguents. But he should have known that this was an ancient Eastern custom, which, if we may believe Savary, still exists. 'Vous voyez, Monsieur (says this traveller), que l'usage antique de se parfumer la tête et la barbe, célébré par le from Degen and from Gail's index, that the Gerprophète Roi, subsiste encore de nos jours.'-man poet Weisse has imitated it, Scherz. Lieder, Lettre 12. Savary likewise cites this very ode of lib. ii. carm. 5; that Ramler also has imitated it, Anacreon. Angerianus has not thought the idea Lyr. Blumenlese, lib. iv. p. 335; and some others. inconsistent; he has introduced it in the follow--See Gail de Editionibus. ing lines:

Hæc mihi cura, rosis et cingere tempora myrto,
Et curas multo dilapidare mero.
Hæc mihi cura, comas et barbam tingere succo
Assyrio et dulces continuere jocos.

This be my care to twine the rosy wreath,

And drench my sorrows in the ample bowl: To let my beard the Assyrian unguent breathe, And give a loose to levity of soul!

2 The poet here is in a frenzy of enjoyment, and it is, indeed,' amabilis insania.'

Furor di poesia,

Di lascivia, e di vino,

3 This ode is addressed to a swallow. I find

We are referred by Degen to that stupid book, the Epistles of Alciphron, tenth epistle, third book, where Iophon complains to Eraston of being wakened, by the crowing of a cock, from his vision of riches.

4 The loquacity of the swallow was proverbialized; thus Nicostratus:

Ει το συνεχώς και πολλα και ταχέως λαλειν
Ην του φρονειν παρασημον, αἱ χελιδονες
Ελεγοντ' αν ήμων σωφρονεστεραι πολυ
If in prating from morning till night,
A sign of our wisdom there be,
The swallows are wiser by right,

For they prattle much faster than we.

Or, as Tereus did of old1 (So the fabled tale is told), Shall I tear that tongue away, Tongue that uttered such a lay? How unthinking hast thou been! Long before the dawn was seen, When I slumbered in a dream, (Love was the delicious theme!) Just when I was nearly blest, Ah! thy matin broke my rest!

ODE XI.2

'TELL me, gentle youth, I pray thee, What in purchase shall I pay thee For this little waxen toy, Image of the Paphian boy?' Thus I said, the other day, To a youth who passed my way. 'Sir' (he answered, and the while Answered all in Doric style), 'Take it, for a trifle take it; Think not yet that I could make it ; Pray believe it was not I; No-it cost me many a sigh, And I can no longer keep

Little gods who murder sleep!'

[ocr errors]

Here, then, here,' I said, with joy, . 'Here is silver for the boy : He shall he my bosom guest, Idol of my pious breast!' Little Love! thou now art mine, Warm me with that torch of thine; Make me feel as I have felt, Or thy waxen frame shall melt. I must burn with warm desire, Or thou, my boy, in yonder fire!

Modern poetry has confirmed the name of Philomel upon the nightingale; but many very respectable ancients assigned this metamorphose to Progne, and made Philomel the swallow, as Anacreon does here.

2 It is difficult to preserve with any grace the narrative simplicity of this ode, and the humour of the turn with which it concludes. I feel that the translation must appear very vapid, if not ludicrous, to an English reader.

3 I have adopted the accentuation which Elias Andreas gives to Cybele:

In montibus Cybèlen Magno sonans boatu,

4 This fountain was in a grove, consecrated to Apollo, and situated between Colophon and Le

ODE XII.

THEY tell how Atys, wild with love,
Roams the mount and haunted grove;
Cybele's name he howls around,
The gloomy blast returns the sound!
Oft too by Claros' hallowed spring,4
The votaries of the laurelled king
Quaff the inspiring magic stream,
And rave in wild prophetic dream.
But frenzied dreams are not for me.
Great Bacchus is my deity!
Full of mirth, and full of him,
While waves of perfume round me
swim;

And you sit blushing by my side,
While flavoured bowls are full supplied,
I will be mad and raving too-
Mad, my girl! with love for you!

[blocks in formation]

bedos, in Ionia. The god had an oracle there. Scaliger has thus alluded to it in his Anacreon. tica:

Semel ut concitus œstro,
Veluti qui Clarias aquas
Ebibere loquaces,

Quo plus canunt, plura volunt.

Arthologia, in which the poet assumes Reason as 5 Longepierre has quoted an epigram from the the armour against Love:

Ώπλισμαι προς ερωτά περι στερνοισι λογισμον,
Ουδε με νικησει, μονος εων προς ένα.
Θνατος δ' αθανάτῳ συνελευσομαι, ην δε βοηθον
Βακχον εχῃ, τι μονος προς δυ' εγω δυνάμαι ;
With Reason I cover my breast as a shield,
And fearlessly meet little Love in the field;

« ForrigeFortsæt »